The creators of Cartoon Network Groovies break down the iconic music videos and explain why these songs have resonated for over 2 decades
- Starting in the 90s, Cartoon Network Groovies fused new and old cartoons with music.
- Songs included "Josie and the Pussycats in Musical Evolution" and "Go Monkey! Go!"
It's hard to combine disco, punk, country, and techno into one song, but singer-songwriter Chrystina Lloree Fincher did the unthinkable.
Fincher may not be a household name, but her voice echoed in just about every child's household 20 years ago as the singer of Cartoon Network's song, "Josie and the Pussycats in 'Musical Evolution.'" By her own admission, she never saw the show - a music-filled cartoon featuring the adventures of a girl pop group - in the '70s although she saw it re-air in the '90s.
"And when I got the 'Josie and the Pussycats' theme to get familiar with it, I just took it decade by decade," Fincher told Insider, explaining how the song seamlessly takes the pop group through different decades of music.
One of the main reasons why the song worked was because of composer Michael Kohler, who has worked with Cartoon Network for years. When he got the "all genres" concept for it, he told Insider he was shaking his head initially, but still embraced the challenge.
"It was really rewarding when it paid off, especially when [director] Jonas Odell finished the animated piece to the music," Kohler said.
Fincher - a multi-genre, professional musician of over 30 years - looks back at the song and said it's been incredibly interesting how people in their 20s have reconnected with it.
"It speaks to the power of music, the power of nostalgia, and the power of cartoons," Fincher said.
The song is just one of many music videos part of the Cartoon Network Groovies series, which ran from 1999 to 2005. The series - full of songs set to videos of new and old cartoons - included a number of catchy tracks, including the Magilla Gorilla-themed "Gorilla 4 Sale" and the "Ed, Edd n Eddy"-inspired rock cut "The Incredible Shrinking Day."
In the decades since, as box TV watchers grew into social media users, YouTube videos from the Cartoon Network Groovies series have seen millions of views with nostalgia-filled comments.
The series started in the early days of Cartoon Network when they failed to secure advertisers
Groovies was a product of Michael Ouweleen, then-creative director at a fairly new Cartoon Network and now-president of Adult Swim. He tasked Steve Patrick and his creative services department to create content to creatively fill time between the network's popular shows. The department helped make blocks like "Cartoon Cartoon Fridays" and "The Big Game."
"The ratings didn't matter as much in those early days. It was just about trying to get onto as many different cable systems as possible," Patrick told Insider. "We had so much commercial time available because we didn't have big advertisers at that point."
By the late '90s, Patrick said the objective was to make old cartoon characters have a contemporary feel. That idea started the Cartoon Network Shorties series, featuring modern visual renditions of characters like Hanna-Barbera's happy alligator Wally Gator and JabberJaw, the talking shark. Patrick said the ska-themed JabberJaw video did so well it paved the way for more musical shorts.
The lyrics for 'My Best Friend Plank' were created because the writer's brother had no idea what he did for a living.
After Cartoon Network Groovies featured the likes of "Yogi Bear" and "Super Friends," a series featuring Justice League superheroes, a video based on a modern show was Patrick's James Taylor-inspired "My Best Friend Plank."
The song, produced by late composer Eddie Horst, explored the friendship between a wooden board Plank and Jonny from "Ed, Edd n Eddy." In the video, Plank hops around various, vintage scenes like a park, a campground, and a forest.
Patrick said he crafted the lyrics because his brother didn't know what he did for a living.
"He was a huge James Taylor fan so I wrote 'Sweet Baby James'-era lyrics with as many different woodworking puns I could throw in there," he said.
Some of puns include references totree disease Dutch elm disease, swelling up in the rain and former Vice President Al Gore's wife Tipper Gore, a name to rhyme with "chipper."
The producer of 'Gorilla 4 Sale' called the rap song 'the best porn track ever.'
Patrick also wrote this jazzy, rap song inspired by the popular cartoon ape Magilla Gorilla. The accompanying video is a mix of random clips from "The Magilla Gorilla Show," a show about a talking ape that spent his days in a pet shop and ran from 1963 to 1967, overlaid with colorful blocks to evoke a minimal, '50s feeling.
It's a product of Sandblast Productions co-owner and producer Michael Ungar and audio mixer Diriki Mack. The two were at audio post-production facility Broadway Sound, an extension of "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video, when Patrick asked the pair to add their musical flair to it.
"The wording was so packed in and the beat was so laid out, you could never get through it just trying to be on the one, and the two," Mack, who also rapped the track, told Insider. "You kind of had to get other syncopation in there to fit all the wording for it to make sense and speak it clearly."
Mack said Ungar, the track's producer, showcased his editing genius.
"I remember one comment, which I loved, that was like 'this is the best porn track ever,'" he told Insider. "Put that on my tombstone."
'Circles' and 'Rolling' recycled retro cartoon footage, introducing older cartoons to newer audiences
Alternative rock band Soul Coughing's hit record "Circles" saw animated airtime with a video full of scenes from old Hanna-Barbera cartoons - literally - walking amongst circles. The group's "Rolling" also mended "Betty Boop" footage with lyrics from a repetitious alternative bop.
Mike Doughty, the vocalist and guitarist for the band, told Insider that former Warner Bros. Records' president Steven Baker helped craft the videos.
"This guy who was the most important person at the label, as kind of a last stand of the old artist-oriented Warner Bros. to the new corporate Warner Bros., made this beautiful thing," he added.
Doughty said it was a massive effort on Baker's part as it took a level of obsession and a "massive" effort to find the old cartoon clips and clear them or get permission to use them.
As a kid, Doughty himself saw old black and white cartoons and predicted children were "fascinated" by the mystical spookiness offered in the "Betty Boop" clips seen in "Rolling." Throughout the video, Betty Boop is taking part in a wacky automobile race.
The group had ties to other animations, as well, beyond Cartoon Network.
"Rolling" and "Circles" came from the group's "El Oso" album, a project featuring artwork from cartoonist Jim Woodring's comic "Frank" about a cat's psychedelic journey. Doughty said Soul Coughing's first album also features a sample by Carl Stalling, a composer who used Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" in old Warner Bros. cartoons.
'Go! Monkey Go!'spurred a Devo song years later
Devo's "Go! Monkey Go!" - inspired by "Powerpuff Girls" villainous ape Mojo Jojo, who is hellbent on destroying the girls - included everything from a dancing woman to flashy visuals. The video also featured Mojo Jojo with a laser blaster as the ape presses various destructive buttons.
After the network asked rock band Devo to do the song, founder Gerald Casale told Insider he started paying closer attention to Mojo Jojo.
"You can't have superheroes without a supervillain. It's mythology, it's Jungian, it's the duality that we all live with about human nature," Casale said. "But you're having fun with a kid's cartoon [and] here's an evil character that's interesting. So I wrote lyrics about him that were sympathetic towards his self-conflicted personality."
Fellow Devo founder Mark Mothersbaugh laid down a mean, "cascading carnival" riff that took listeners back to Devo's 1983 album "Oh, No! It's Devo!," Casale said. He said the group later used the song again in the form of 2010's "Don't Shoot (I'm A Man)."
'The Incredible Shrinking Day' features lyrics that were relatable to kids
This infectious rock number follows the trio from "Ed, Edd n' Eddy," the animated TV series that ran for five seasons until 2008, as they are shrunk to fit inside the dollhouse of Ed's sister Sarah. After Sarah's lemonade shrinks the trio, the video shows Ed, Edd, and Eddy as they try to escape in a toy car.
It started with composer Eddie Horst, according to musician and vocalist Garrett Freireich, who was working for Turner Broadcasting at the time. Originally, the idea was to animate a band - Freireich's rock band Eden - for "Ed, Edd n' Eddy" although budget cuts made the plan not see the light of day. Instead, Freireich would sing a song based on the show, produced by Horst and penned by writer-producer Stuart Hill.
Hill told Insider he thought the song would be relatable to kids.
"If the story is her putting you in this house, it was like 'I'm not staying in there, I'm not coming in, my friends are more important to me,' [it's] something kids would sing," Hill said.
After the pandemic hit in 2020, Freireich hopped online to stream an acoustic version of the song, now available on YouTube. He said it's only proved the song's lasting power.
"I'm getting messages from Estonia and from Russia, even one kid commented, 'You saved 2020,'" Freireich told Insider. "It's quite an honor to be a part of something that's become that big."